


the most unexpected things

by forbiddenarchives



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon Era, Episode Tag, First Kiss, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Missing Scene, More Tags to Be Added as the Story Unfolds, POV Alternating, Porn with Feelings, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-25 16:44:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21359410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forbiddenarchives/pseuds/forbiddenarchives
Summary: John Silver is, by his very nature, not an optimistic man, although he likes to pretend to be. Still, the way Flint looks at him with that half-feral grin makes him twitch in anticipation.(Or, the retelling of season 2 where everyone is 5000% hornier. Starts out as a series of standalone missing scenes but gets somewhat plottier later on.)
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw
Comments: 102
Kudos: 195





	1. an optimistic man

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is set during and after the last scene of S02E01 when Flint and Silver have captured the Spanish warship.

The tension drains out of Silver when Dufresne tells them their sentences have been commuted. Something unclenches inside of him, like a breath he’s been holding for too long, and he looks over to where Flint is leaning against the small turret-like structure on the forecastle. Flint’s face is still stony: he’s been eerily quiet throughout the vote.

17 yea votes against 15 nays. Dufresne appears to get no small amount of satisfaction out of letting them know they’ll be removed from the ship without severance as soon as they reach Nassau. It’s clear he wouldn't have minded hanging them either; he seems the sort of man to hold on to any small victory he can get. Dufresne smirks and turns around, leaving them alone on the forecastle. It is all Silver can do to keep from rolling his eyes.

On the deck below, the men are celebrating the taking of the Spanish man-of-war. Cheers erupt, and the voices turn rowdier as one of them staggers abovedecks with a small cache of red wine. Silver has never wished to be part of a crew like this but he wouldn’t have minded at least some credit for his role in taking the ship. He volunteered for this mission — he, John Silver! — and yet everyone seems thoroughly unimpressed. There should be more in it for him than just… not being hanged. Gold, for example.

Despite his efforts, he’s now stuck on the outside of it all with Flint, who is still brooding enigmatically. Silver is loath to admit that the newly deposed Captain is almost more attractive like this, even though the memory of Flint pressing him against the storage compartments belowdecks with a knife to his throat still sends shivers through his entire god-damned body. To feel this strength and anger turned against him was a rush he’s unlikely to forget soon. Silver has always done his best work under pressure — he’s quick with his mouth and quick with his hands, for as long as the threat of violence is just that: a threat. He’s much less enamored with it when the violence becomes manifest.

Silver swallows. He needs Flint. Dufresne’s attitude betrays him, even if he has the crew’s vote. A natural leader — a competent leader — wouldn’t have gloated, wouldn’t have held a grudge the way Dufresne had when Flint was on the ground with a bullet wound and all but defeated. Silver shakes his head thoughtfully. Dufresne might be a liability, unused to command. He may have the moment, but does he have it in him to lead the crew when they’re up against Spanish soldiers?

Across from him, Flint is scowling and stroking his beard as though deep in thought. Silver is struck by an impulse. The memory of Flint’s rough body against his is only one piece of the puzzle.

He’ll have to be careful. He raises his left hand to mirror Flint’s gesture, and reassures himself that the crew’s attention is safely occupied elsewhere. Then he begins to speak.

“You were right, for what it’s worth.”

Flint seems irritated rather than puzzled. “Beg your pardon?”

“If your interests and mine were adverse to each other, there’s a good chance I’d cross you to save myself.”

Silver knew he’d have to bait Flint into talking to him at all, and there’s nothing like a small dig to get someone’s attention. Flint’s eyes bore into him. “Then why didn’t you?”

“Because at the moment,” Silver takes a deep breath and gets up, “I don’t believe our interests are adverse to each other.”

He makes deliberate eye contact before he moves across the deck to stand next to Flint, stepping right into his carefully maintained personal space. Flint’s stare burns through him and Silver turns his back to him, his eyes gliding over the shape of the ship in front of them. He needs to make sure the men are accounted for in the waist of the upper deck and unable to overhear what comes next. He’d also like to ensure that Flint can get a good look at his backside, should he have followed Silver with his gaze.

“I don’t believe you did any of this for a pardon, or a passage to Nassau, or to be able to walk away from anything,” Silver continues. “I think you intend to reclaim your captaincy. I think you intend to take control of this ship.”

More accustomed now to the tense presence of Flint next to him, he turns around. Flint is pointedly looking straight ahead. Silver watches him intently as he charges on.

“And then I think you intend to return to that beach, armed to the teeth, and seize every last ounce of gold off of it.” He inhales and drops his voice. “And I think you’re going to need my help to do it.”

It’s only now that Flint turns his face towards Silver and fixes him in his steady, calculating gaze. Silver’s stomach lurches and he pulls up the corner of his mouth in an uneasy smile. Flint’s eyes are dark pits. It’s a terrible thing to have Flint’s attention on him like this, and exhilarating at the same time. Silver feels dread pooling in his stomach, and blood pooling in a place not far beneath.

Silver’s challenge is ignored when Flint turns away and the heat of his stare leaves him. Silver shivers at the loss. He feels the distance between them opening up, even as he’s certain that he hasn’t overplayed his hand. His fingers twitch, but it’s too soon, too soon. He wills himself calm, makes his voice go light.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Flint remains silent and turned away from him but he hasn’t moved, leaning against the turret only inches away from Silver’s hands. If Flint wanted to be by himself, to think and brood and strategize, now would be the perfect opportunity for him to take his leave. But he doesn’t. He stands there, all coiled energy and rage, and this is it. This is the moment.

Now comes the most dangerous and therefore exciting part, the one Silver will need all his skill to pull off.

Silver takes one more deep breath, and then, on the exhale, he reaches out.

* * *

Flint stares at Silver’s hand on his arm, his good arm, the one without the bullet wound in the shoulder, and he’s still staring at it when Silver moves his thumb across the muscle, softly, experimentally. A gentle motion, and yet unmistakable. Heat surges through Flint, focuses on the spot that Silver is still, inexplicably, touching.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Flint growls. He doesn’t pull his arm away, although he knows he should. It feels too good to be touched so hesitantly after all the fighting he’s endured today, the struggle to gain this ship against the odds, the men he has killed to achieve it. It throws him off-balance that there can still be gentleness in this world where men are maimed for less.

Silver doesn’t quite manage to meet his eyes when Flint looks up at him. He looks at his hand on Flint’s arm instead, his breath coming faster.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Silver repeats, a mere whisper, before looking up at Flint.

Flint’s eyes slide over Silver’s body almost unwillingly, taking in the curls framing his exposed neck, the movement of Silver’s throat as he swallows. A tension he hasn’t felt in a long time takes hold of him. Silver’s arm is still stretched out towards Flint, his whole body angled towards him, cracked open like a shell. With a sudden feeling of vertigo Flint notices that Silver is half-hard in his breeches.

“Tell me.” Silver sounds pleading now, almost breathless, but when Flint looks back up there’s a smile curling around Silver’s lips that makes it obvious that he has noticed him noticing. It’s that smile, that knowledge passing between them, that perceptiveness that intrigues Flint, intrigues him more than the promise of Silver’s arousal, although that’s certainly worth investigating as well. He wonders what it would take to get something at least vaguely resembling the truth out of this man who is now, apparently, all but offering himself to Flint on a wild guess. More likely it’s a deeply calculated move in order to strengthen his tenuous offer. Well. Two can play at that game.

“If you’re going to punch me, I’d rather… “ Silver babbles on, before Flint shushes him. Flint pulls his arm away and in the same motion turns more fully towards Silver.

“Let me see you.”

The hand that was stroking his arm flutters downwards like a wounded bird, and Silver’s eyebrows knit together. “Beg your pardon?”

Flint bites back a smile and nods in the general direction of Silver’s midsection. “Show me.”

Silver’s small gasp is delicious, barely audible over the raucous laughter of the men in the waist. Flint keeps an eye on them. He doesn’t want any surprises, but his main focus is on Silver who is now fumbling at his belt and undoing buttons. Then the breeches drop to the ground and his cock springs forward, mostly covered by the hem of his shirt. Silver nudges the trousers to the side and pulls the hem of his shirt up, stroking himself to full hardness. The head of his cock glistens wetly as his fingers curl around the base.

But it’s the expression on Silver’s face that sets Flint’s teeth on edge. That singular focus on his own arousal, that practiced touch, shot through with a skittish, almost nervous quality, seeking his approval. Flint schools his features into an expression of casual disinterest — after all, he has had decades of experience in seeming distant and aloof in the presence of men he’d much rather fuck into the ground. Which, it needs to be said, it takes more for him to do than a loose smile in a handsome face. Still, he notices how soft the lamp light is on Silver’s skin, how dextrous and strong the fingers fisted around Silver’s cock. The sharp edges of his hip bones around that dark patch of hair.

Silver’s curls fall into his face as he looks down and then up at Flint with an infuriating grin. “You seem to like what you see.” He jerks his head in the direction of the noise on the deck behind them. “What about them?”

Flint snorts. If Silver thinks he’s going to find them a secluded corner for whatever misdeeds he’s got in mind, he is sorely mistaken. Flint prefers him right here, not quite in view, but always at the risk of discovery. He moves back a little bit, so Silver has his back against the wall while Flint retains a view of the stairs, the stars, and the proceedings right in front of him. If anyone’s coming, he’ll know.

It’s been so long since he’s had anything like this, years of solitude punctuated only by Miranda’s steady affection, once they were over the worst of the loss. She hasn’t openly encouraged him to seek out other partners — she’s too dependent on him now, tucked away in inland isolation. But he knows she isn’t going to begrudge him as long as he keeps her safe and healthy, as long as they can talk about the important things. That’s always been their understanding. Perhaps he can allow himself this, and gain a bit more knowledge about the man who has become so entangled in his hunt for the _Urca_. One small pleasure against the grimness of the day.

He glares at Silver, baring his teeth in what only a very optimistic man would be capable of calling a smile. “Them? Fuck them.”

* * *

John Silver is, by his very nature, not an optimistic man, although he likes to pretend to be. Still, the way Flint looks at him with that half-feral grin makes him twitch in anticipation. He leans back against the wall and gives his cock a slow and thorough tug. With satisfaction he notices that Flint’s eyes are tracking his movements.

“Without those men we’d be dead, and I for one am glad that I shall live to see another day.” Silver’s breath hitches as his palm circles over the tip of his erection. He decides to press forward since Flint still hasn’t moved a single muscle. They are close enough to touch, but Silver knows not to push things too fast, not physically at least. “You don’t get to indulge very often, it seems. Not as —”

Flint interrupts, a sardonic eyebrow raised. “If you think that fucking me will improve your standing among the crew, you’re wrong.”

“This is hardly fucking now, is it?” Silver strokes himself a few more times, pushing his foreskin over the head of his cock. His heart is pounding in his chest, mostly because of the sheer thrill of being out here with Flint’s eyes all over him. After a moment he raises his other hand to his mouth. He sucks two fingers into it, lets his lips go soft around them. Flint almost rolls his eyes at the lewd gesture but remains transfixed, which is just as well. With Flint still watching, Silver shifts his stance and slips the wet fingers between the cheeks of his ass. He shoots Flint a lopsided grin. “But it can be if you’d like.”

Flint mutters a curse under his breath, and his eyes go wide when it becomes plain what Silver is doing. Warmth spreads through Silver’s belly, just as the first wave of pleasure hits him. With one hand on his cock and the other one teasing the rim of his hole, Silver watches as Flint positively vibrates with the barely-contained urge to do _something_ to him. As far as Silver is concerned, it better be something filthy.

The thing about men like Flint, Silver thinks, is that they like to be in control at all times, which, in turn, makes them wonderfully predictable. And the beautiful thing about this current situation is that Flint still _thinks_ he is. In control, that is. Silver can tell by the way Flint holds himself, by the way his mouth has opened just a little, unbeknownst even to himself.

The idea that Flint will be much easier to manage from now on sends small shivers up Silver’s spine. He needs that gold, and Flint? Well, Flint’s chances of regaining the captaincy can only improve if he isn’t so fucking high-strung all the time.

Silver gives a small gasp as the tip of his finger breaches his hole. He rolls his hips back against his hand, fucking himself open ever so slowly. It’d be easier with some oil, but he’s doing this mostly for the benefit of setting Flint on edge, not to get himself off. There’s also the added bonus of being better prepared should Flint decide to just grab him and bend him over against the wall. Which is a risk he’s now taking, he’s aware, and the thought of it shouldn’t _do_ things to him but it does. With his other hand still wrapped around his cock, Silver moans breathlessly. 

Flint’s eyes dart around the upper deck, but when he doesn’t seem concerned, Silver moans again. Flint’s gaze finally converges on him and he closes the distance between them in one quick stride. One of his legs pushes between Silver’s, and there’s only a sliver of air left between their bodies. They’re close enough for their breaths to mingle, and Silver can feel Flint hot against him.

Then Flint’s hands are on his cock, calloused and warm on his sensitive skin. Flint gives him a sharp tug, and Silver has to let go and use both hands to steady himself against the wall. Flint’s hands aren’t rough exactly, but they’re taking stock of him in an extremely straightforward way, cupping his balls and pushing his foreskin back, and Silver can’t predict his next move just yet, but his legs feel shaky.

Flint’s grip twists over the head of Silver’s cock, and his voice is dangerously low against Silver’s ear. “How would you let me fuck you, then?”

His words shoot a jolt of pleasure through Silver, several visions unfolding at once. The thought that this is something he gets to decide to _let_ Flint do, in the manner of his choosing. Silver gasps again as Flint starts jacking him more purposefully. His other hand is now tracing the curve of Silver’s ass, and somehow it’s the softness of that touch — almost a gentle tickle in contrast to Flint’s manhandling of his cock — that makes Silver forget how he got here in the first place. There’s an ease in the way Flint’s touching him, as though he’s done it before plenty of times and knows exactly how to do it. It makes Silver feel vaguely reverent, makes him roll his hips into the touch.

“In your cabin,” Silver pants, because that’s not his favorite vision, “over your desk.” He rests his head against Flint’s as his breath comes faster, and Flint’s scent hits him, incongruous among the ever-present smell of salt and the sea that’s seeped into all of their skins. Something musky and wild.

“I don’t have a cabin on this ship.” Flint shifts against him, and then his hard cock is pressing into Silver’s hip. “So you must have been thinking of me when we were still on the _Walrus_. Imagined what it would be like.” Flint ruts against him, matching the rhythm of his hand on Silver’s cock. Silver bites his lip in a sudden burst of frustration. Shit.

“You’ll get it back,” Silver manages between breaths, “when you’re — captain again. And then —“

His sentence is cut short as Flint’s hand on him picks up speed and then strokes him just so — Flint’s breath is hot against his ear, and before Silver knows what’s happening his eyes scrunch shut and he is spurting his release all over Flint’s hand and into their shirts.

“Fuck.” Silver stutters through his orgasm as Flint guides him through it. Then it’s over and they’re both looking down at the mess between them. Silver feels his face flush red, grateful for the dimness of the lamps.

He looks up at Flint who smirks back at him. Without breaking eye contact, Flint wipes his hand on Silver’s shirt. He looks amused and perhaps even a tiny bit pleased with himself. It is mortifying.

“Good night, Mr. Silver.” Flint nods and makes his way downstairs, humming a tune.

It takes Silver another full second to realize he hasn’t touched Flint once. He hasn’t taken any of his clothes off. For all he knows, Flint didn’t come either, he just… wanked Silver off with the detached professionalism of a brothel worker.

Silver cards a hand through his hair and pulls up his breeches. If he were an optimistic man at all, he’d still call this a success. As it is, he thinks it’s rather time to see about a fresh shirt.


	2. something best left unexamined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Flint takes care of business.

Even on a ship as large as the Spanish man-of-war, privacy is something to be cherished. It can be hard-won and fiercely protected.

Flint knows that Kingsley and Muldoon liked to sneak off to the hold before turning in for the night, when Kinglsey was still with them, just as he knows that the men on the mid-watch like to pass the time by trading handjobs and other sexual favors. It is to be expected on any ship that men’s needs will find a way to express themselves, but right now, without a private space to call his own, Flint feels unexpectedly exposed in the face of his own need. There are few things he finds less enticing than being vulnerable in the company of what used to be his men.

After a small search, Flint finds a corner on the lower gun deck where he won’t be disturbed. He takes off his belt and sinks down behind a large 18-pounder, fingering open his breeches. Someone has left open the gunport, and there’s a soft breeze coming in. Flint finds himself categorizing the wind’s angle and strength automatically. If it turns, there might be a chance to use it to his advantage, perhaps even weaken Dufresne’s hold on the captaincy. He cannot allow it to last.

First, though, there is something else that needs to be taken care of. His cock twitches at the thought of Silver on the forecastle, the way he’d moaned and cursed and spilled himself so beautifully into Flint’s hands. It was almost too easy, but then Flint knows that few things get a man worked up like coming back from the brink of death. Considering Silver’s obvious lack of experience in close combat, he can hardly blame the guy.

Flint pulls his cock out and starts stroking himself. His other hand traces soft circles on his thigh and then slips into his shirt to brush against a nipple. The hand on his cock is still sticky with Silver’s come — it would have been pointless to wash up, and a waste of water besides. He imagines Silver licking his own release off Flint’s hand, his fingers, his palm — clever tongue lapping at the spaces between his knuckles. Flint sucks his own fingers into his mouth, and imagines it to be Silver’s mouth, hot and wet around him.

He thinks of Silver’s cock, too, warm and heavy in his hand, pulsing under him. So eager to please. He thinks of wrapping his own mouth around that cock, feeling the stretch. He wants to sink down on it, savor the fullness when Silver hits the back of his throat. Would he swallow him down or jerk him off into his mouth? Would he let Silver use his mouth to take his pleasure, or would he use him himself, take him apart piece by piece with his tongue?

Flint laps at his own fingers but it’s not the same, a hollow imitation of the weight and stretch of a cock between his lips. He thinks of taking Silver against the railing on the forecastle. He’d fuck him at night when most of the crew are asleep — a hand in his curls and one on his hips, as he lines himself up and presses into him. How Silver would moan and bite his lips, maybe try desperately to keep quiet so he doesn’t wake any of the men sleeping beneath their feet. The tight heat around Flint’s cock, and then the slap of their bodies coming together, Silver’s whimpers in between his own muffled groans. How Silver would push back against him, begging him to fuck him harder. How verbal Silver would be (and now, in his vision, there’s no one around, no reason to be quiet), how he would gasp and moan and mutter obscenities until he was entirely incoherent. He’d arch his back for Flint, and Flint would thrust deeper, setting up a punishing pace because this is what Silver wants, this is what Silver needs from him, he needs to be fucked totally and utterly senseless.

Flint would curl a hand around Silver’s cock, the way he just had on the deck, and Silver would come with a shout, seizing up beneath him, his ass clenching down on Flint’s cock. And now Flint feels his own orgasm building, he thinks of Silver trembling underneath him, holding on to the rail as Flint pours himself into him, hips gripped tight. He grinds against Silver’s ass, as wave after wave of come spills into him and over his hand. Flint is shaking now, too, and dizzy all over, his heart hammering in his chest. He feels more alive than he has in a long while, a feeling he pushes aside before it can fully reach his consciousness.

As Flint’s images of Silver recede, he grabs a rag to wipe himself down. He doesn’t know when he was last so needy that he had to crouch behind a cannon to take the edge off, but that, too, is something best left unexamined. He slams the gunport closed before he makes his way back to the crew’s quarters. Appearances matter. He won’t have anyone look weak on his watch unless it suits him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really not into the idea of adding homophobia to this verse, so have some mentions of casual homosexuality in all-male environments. 
> 
> (Of course Flint would run a ship on which he a) knows who's getting it on with whom, and b) wouldn't punish anyone for sodomy the way, say, the British Navy would. I imagine queer pirates would gravitate towards him through the same unspoken knowledge that has Jack Rackham collect lesbians.)


	3. an inconvenient number of bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Silver finds himself in the Captain's cabin late at night. 
> 
> Set after S02E02. The chapter should provide all necessary context.

By the time Flint has regained his captaincy, Silver has acquired a tremendous amount of gossip, a split lip, and an inconvenient number of bruises. His jaw aches and his chest hurts whenever he breathes too deeply, but at least the nosebleed has stopped.

Things are finally looking up. The crew is slowly coming round to his mid-afternoon readings of the daily “goings-on”, which also provide an outlet for individual crew members to express their feelings, as it were, in the pirates’ preferred love language: through the gentle application of fists to faces. In the long run, Silver hopes, they’ll stop punching him and start relying on him. And then, perhaps, bad blood over the captain’s decisions won’t linger the way it used to.

Dufresne, whose inaction when under attack earlier that day would have been comical if men hadn’t died for it, has been hiding out in the captain’s cabin. The ensuing vote over the captaincy was close but openly in Flint’s favor. Flint stood quietly during the voting, arms crossed, his face an expressionless mask before he strode off to reclaim his cabin.

Since no one else on the crew would talk to them (except for Randall, of course, but Silver isn’t certain Randall counts in the ways that matter right now), he and Flint have spent mealtimes together. They’ve also had the occasional chat outside of those, but ever since that night on the forecastle Flint hasn’t so much as accidentally brushed against him — and Silver is very proficient at being in the way. Instead, he’s kept himself carefully closed off, which has only served to make Silver’s fingers itch all the more at what he might be hiding. Silver even remembers a moment when they were talking belowdecks, when he caught himself scooting closer to Flint, hoping to pick out his scent among the smell of food and the other men’s stench, to no avail. It’s not his proudest moment.

Still, they’ve talked affably enough, and he shouldn’t have any cause for concern, but he has felt Flint _watching_ him. Whether he’s reaching up to grab something from a shelf or downed by the punches of an enraged crewmate, stretched out on the floor with his nose bleeding. Flint is watching him. Watching and thinking god knows what. Most likely taking stock of his weaknesses and making plans to get rid of him, now that he’s served his function.

Ever since Silver has made that careless comment about not wanting to be on the crew for a moment longer once they have the Urca gold, his stomach has been in knots. Flint knows where the gold is, now. He knows how to get there, and he’s captain again. And Silver knows what captains do to thieves — Singleton has been an instructive example, even if he was, in the end, only a mutineer. Because Silver was the thief. Silver is _always_ the thief, and he will always be a thorn in the side of someone who mourns over a dead body the way Flint did, that day in the cabin, cradling his old quartermaster in his arms and weeping like someone who, deep down, actually cared about right and wrong.

It’s a good thing that Silver doesn’t care nearly as much. It’s the thing that enables him to watch the door to the captain’s cabin when the other sailors have dispersed, pretending to mend some cloth. It enables him to watch and wait until Dufresne slinks out, teeth clenched and eyes red with shame. Silver waits a few more minutes, then throws the cloth overboard and makes his way over to the door. He knocks swiftly before he can lose momentum or draw too much attention to himself.

“Come in.”

Flint is just taking off a long black coat that looks to be worth far more than just a few pieces of eight, hanging it up behind the desk. It’s too warm to keep wearing it, even at this time of night, especially with all the candles burning everywhere to make light.

Silver steps up to the table, eyes darting around the room. The candlelight enhances the stately finery of the cabin and the golden ornaments on the walls. Silver takes in the heavy wooden desk, the massive chair behind it, and the rows of scrolls and books to his right, the titles of which he can barely make out from where he’s standing. On the other side of the cabin, there’s a chess set and more chests and shelves hiding possessions. The curtains to the side of the back windows suggest nooks that can be closed off against the daylight or to prevent the curious stares of people coming in on ship’s business.

And in the half-light of the candles, between the desk and the windowseat, is Flint. His back is very straight as he rolls his shoulders, wincing at the gunshot wound that must still be healing. He looks Silver up and down as if he were an insect attracted to the light.

“What is it?”

Flint is back in the role of captain again, all hard-won rapport between them gone. It appears that Silver is just another chore on his long list of issues to deal with. He doesn’t seem to care much about Silver’s response, either. Instead, Flint steps around the desk to study the bookshelf, turning his back.

Silver swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “I’ve just come to say well done on the captaincy,” he says, like a fool, to the back of Flint’s head. “And also because … I owe you.”

“Hmm,” Flint grunts. He pulls out a thick volume and only half-turns to Silver.

“… for the other night,” Silver finishes awkwardly. He hopes his meaning is obvious because he damn well isn’t going to clarify.

Now Flint turns towards him, book in hand. “You don’t owe me a thing,” he says firmly. “Now, if you don’t mind —”

“I feel I do,” Silver interrupts. “And I’d rather have this score settled before we reach Nassau.”

Seeing how the captain lets himself be interrupted, which is unusual, he takes the book out of his hands and sets it down on the table. Next, he unbuckles Flint’s belt and takes it off, placing it gently beside the book. It’s a small miracle that Flint just stands there, following his movements, but Silver is too determined to question it. He unbuttons Flint’s breeches, bracing himself against a shove or a flinch or a step back that never comes. Looking up at Flint, he sinks down to his knees, pulling the breeches down with him.

Flint’s legs are speckled with freckles and covered in fine coppery hair, glinting in the light of the candles. The skin of his thighs is getting milkier up towards his crotch. Flint’s half-hard cock seems substantial before him, and Silver can hear Flint breathe in audibly.

“This is absolutely unnecessary,” Flint says, but his voice cracks in a way Silver finds promising.

“All right,” Silver says, sliding a hand over the cock before him, which is fattening rapidly under his ministrations. “We’ll do it for pleasure, then. You can tell me to stop whenever you want.” He grins up at Flint and flicks his tongue over the head of his cock.

“You little —“ Flint starts, then momentarily forgets the rest of his sentence when Silver traces the ridge of his cock head with his tongue. “Fuck.”

Silver closes his lips around him and swallows him down. He can’t quite believe he’s doing this, much less doing it with any chance of survival at all, but somehow Flint has gone quiet and pliant above him. He is fully hard now, pushing against the back of Silver’s throat whenever he tries to take him deep. Silver works his tongue over the length of him, using his hand on Flint’s shaft and his spit to slick him. It is sloppy and a bit rushed, but the whole fact of it — kneeling before Flint like this — goes straight to Silver’s own cock, straining hard and heavy against his breeches.

Silver lets his cheeks go hollow and pumps his fist over Flint’s cock before he swallows him down again, bracing himself against Flint’s leg. There are obscene sounds when he fucks his throat onto Flint’s cock, taking him deep because he can and because he is in control and he wants to show off just a little bit, perhaps. Flint groans above him, legs trembling, his hands grasping for something to steady himself.

When Silver looks up to take a breather Flint’s mouth is hanging open, his pupils blown black. He circles his tongue over the head of Flint’s cock, tracing the shape of it and licking along the underside. When he kisses up the length of it again Flint comes to and grips a loose bunch of hair at the back of Silver’s head.

“Up.”

Flint’s voice is low, brooking no argument, and he pulls softly on Silver’s curls to encourage him to follow through. As soon as Silver is upright on shaky legs Flint drags him into a hungry kiss, mouth open, hand still fisted in his curls. His beard rubs over Silver’s skin and their teeth crash into each other so they have to readjust, and then Silver feels Flint’s tongue, wet and warm in his mouth.

He’s tasting himself on his tongue, Silver realizes, just as Flint pushes him back against the desk. Silver sits against the edge of it, and because Flint is still kissing him he’s only half aware of moving his legs apart so that Flint can stand between them. Flint presses against him, hard cock wet against Silver’s belly, and pulls Silver’s shirt out of his belt. Silver feels slightly woozy because he’s still. Being kissed. By Captain Flint, and Flint’s fingers are hot on his skin, marking him.

Silver leans into the kiss and Flint bites and sucks at his lips. Flint’s scent is strongest here, almost overwhelming. Silver moans into Flint’s mouth until suddenly he flinches back when Flint’s teeth reopen the cut in his lip.

Flint breaks away from him and traces a thumb over the injury. There’s an expression on his face that Silver can’t place at all, and Silver wipes at his mouth until the moment’s gone. Instead of kissing him again, Flint hooks his fingers under Silver’s shirt and pulls it over his head. Then, half-naked from the waist down, he walks over to the large double doors and locks them.

On his way back he stops in front of Silver, taking him in. Silver wouldn’t feel shy at all, usually — his lovers tend to be pleased with his physique — but now he feels a flush creep up his chest because half his torso is covered in bruises. Some bloom dark and fresh, others are fading into sickly yellows and purples. Four days of reading out goings-on and consequently getting the living daylights kicked out of him have taken their toll.

Flint hasn’t touched him again, he just stands there, eyes dark.

“Have you seen Dr. Howell?” he finally asks.

“Funny thing,” Silver responds lightly, “Dr. Howell was unexpectedly busy tonight. Something about a risky maneuver against an English merchant ship.”

To his astonishment, Flint chuckles. It’s a sound Silver finds he likes. “I suppose you’re right,” he says and leans into Silver, nipping at his ear. “You’re all right to keep going?”

“Please, yes,” Silver says, gesturing to his injuries, “this is nothing.” And then, because he feels slightly intoxicated by his newfound power to make Flint smile, he adds, “You should have seen the other guy.”

Flint laughs outright this time, a rumble that vibrates in Silver’s chest. “I’m sure the other guy trembled in fear of what you might do to him.” His tone is mocking, but a gentler kind of mocking than Silver has heard from him before.

Flint’s hands glide down his bruised sides in order to open his belt. When they wrap around his still-hard cock Silver blinks and makes an undignified noise.

“You feel so good in my hands, Silver,” Flint mumbles, voice low. He jacks him a few times, and Silver can really only watch with his mouth hanging open, leaning back on the table. He rolls his hips into Flint’s hand, letting the pleasure build. It feels so good, until he remembers that he doesn’t want a repeat of their previous encounter, and here he is, getting distracted _again_, from what he’s set out to do. Damn Flint and his hands.

Silver leans forward and grabs the hem of Flint’s shirt, pulling it up. This means that Flint has to take his hands off him so Silver can undress him, which is exactly what he was going for. Once the shirt is cast aside, he pulls Flint into a messy kiss. His lip still stings, and Flint seems to be mindful of it because he begins biting down Silver’s neck. There aren’t any bruises there, so far, but with the way Flint sucks at his skin that might well change.

Silver moans and wraps his arms around Flint, pulling him flush against himself. Flint’s left shoulder is still bandaged where the bullet went through, so Silver focuses his attentions on the other side of his body. He is delighted to find that the freckles truly are everywhere, and he thinks he could explore the broad expanse of Flint’s shoulders forever, with their cocks trapped between them and Flint’s face buried in his neck.

Silver digs his fingers into Flint’s hair, undoing the small tie that keeps it out of his eyes. Having Silver’s hands in his hair seems to do something to Flint — he grunts against Silver’s neck and grinds his hips into him. Their hard cocks slide against one another, and Silver moans as Flint ruts against him. He works a hand between their bodies and wraps it around their cocks.

Flint’s face is dark as they pull apart to look between them, look at their cocks flush together in Silver’s fist. Then Flint rolls his hips again, matching Silver’s rhythm.

Silver feels himself getting pulled under by the sensation of Flint fucking against him, the animal grind of their hips. He likes the idea of getting fucked, of being taken and losing yourself to the power of another. Silver’s breath hitches, and he spits into his hand to slick it up, his other hand braced against Flint’s chest, until their cocks are good and slick, until it feels like he might truly be getting fucked. His hand is moving faster now, and he pulls Flint towards him by the back of his head. Their foreheads touch as they pant into each other’s mouths.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” is all Silver can say when Flint grabs his waist and grips him tight, pressing fingers into his bruises. Pain flashes through him and tips him over the edge, and Silver shoots his release wet and hot over his own hand and stomach.

Flint grinds into him again, letting Silver ride out his climax before pulling away. While Silver is still catching his breath he brings a hand to his own cock. With a few efficient strokes and a twist of his wrist he is coming as well, adding his seed to the streaks on Silver’s belly.

Silver looks down. It’s a beautiful mess, in a way, the translucent white over his bruises. A benediction of filth. He is slightly saddened when Flint steps away to retrieve a washcloth.

“Consider your debt settled,” Flint says, not unkindly, as he hands the cloth to Silver. Silver isn’t quite sure whether he can make out a smile curling at the corner of Flint’s lips — if so, the beard hides it well.

While Silver wipes at his middle, Flint shrugs his clothes back on, turning himself back into the captain who is not to be trifled with. But Silver has seen the transformation. He has seen some of the tension in Flint’s shoulders disappear, even as Flint raises an eyebrow to him and nods towards the door in a universal gesture to make himself scarce.

Whatever comes next, Silver feels much happier about taking his chances.


	4. a brush of nothingness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is very gay and there are, perhaps, some feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's riffing on S02E03, drawing on bits and pieces of it here and there. 
> 
> A small note on content: There is some angst about the Hamiltons in the beginning — the rest is all Silverflint. 
> 
> Also note: Flint has an ongoing, loving relationship with Miranda in this fic. I'm changing the tags now to reflect that.

They’re back in Nassau, and Flint has been having a _day_. In truth, there have been a lot of _days_ over the past few years — the majority of which Flint has mostly repressed — but this is one of the worst in, oh, at least five of them.

All right, it’s a regular Tuesday in what appears to pass for his life now, but Flint does not have to be happy about it. He is not happy about Charles Vane in that fort, and even less happy with the unpredictable maneuvers of Eleanor Guthrie, even though he knows that he has, in his own time, also been tempted into unwise decisions out of love, or lust. _(Miranda on top of him in that carriage; Th—)_ He thought he could _rely_ on her, if no one else. He thought they had an understanding, that they wanted the same things. But Vane is Eleanor’s weak spot, her Achilles’ heel, and has been for a while.

He’s arranged for Silver to run whatever errands are needed to gather supplies. He’s also settled on terms with Hornigold to combine their crews should it prove necessary to retake the fort by force.

With his own purchases neatly stowed away in his coat pockets, Flint approaches Miranda’s house in the interior. _Their_ house, on the days he can stand to be there and enjoy his life with her without the yearning hollowing him out to the core. It’s the only thing he wants, the only reason he’s doing any of this, or so he likes to tell himself: a quiet, domestic life. A life of books and homegrown food — albeit in a different iteration. An impossibility. It’s not that he doesn’t cherish Miranda; he does, the thread that connects them often frayed but never ruptured. They’re both just always missing the piece that made them whole, the person who, by the grace of his intellect and wit, wove them into something larger than themselves.

Flint stops short when he reaches the front porch, when he hears the music and the voices. There’s a tightness in his throat as he glances through the window, the sitting room on display before him, Miranda teaching at the harpsichord. Children from the neighboring plantation are crowding round her with bright eyes, their faces shining in the light. How natural she is with them, how radiant.

Flint’s right hand clenches into a fist, then unclenches, releasing his determination into the warm evening air. He can’t face them.

Miranda had raised the possibility of having a child together, once. It would assuage her loneliness, she’d argued, it could be a continuation, perhaps even a reassurance against the fact that he, too, might one day be taken from her. It was a foolish idea, of course. As far as he’s aware, the small inland congregation led by Pastor Lambrick would never bear her having a child out of wedlock, just as _he_ could not bear the finality of marrying her, of usurping someone else’s position. Besmirching her with a false name. But Miranda never lost her fire — he’s always loved her for it. “Let them talk,” she’d said, “and let me have this when you have the account and the fight and the sea.”

Flint had rejected the idea. At the time, it had felt violently true: how impossible this was, too. Perhaps you could grow beautiful flowers from manure, but he’d rather lose a limb than have his own innocent flesh and blood be steeped in it. It was enough that he had to contend with this rotten outgrowth of his life, that he’d dragged Miranda into it, into poverty and toil — into this vile and superfluous state of being, a tumor with a great loss at its center where meaning had collapsed in on itself. A tumor that should have been cut out of the world a long time ago.

They’d fought. He’d left the house that same night, stayed in the Guthrie tavern and on the _Walrus_ until they sailed out. When he returned it took them weeks to start sleeping together again.

Now, he feels less strongly about the impossibility of it all. Perhaps something has been mended, knit together again, even as the rest of it has been soaked in blood and gore, dyed a dark, fatal red. Still, he can’t bear to enter the house now. Even when she sends the children home their specters will hang over them, dead eyes boring through him, and he won’t be able to tell her any of the things he needs to tell her.

He leaves _La Galatea_ on her doorstep, an inscription on the first page. She will understand.

* * *

By the time Flint is back on the warship he has settled himself, settled back into himself. Hornigold and his crew are there, and so is Silver, hovering around Flint as soon as his feet hit the deck.

“I told the men what you asked.” Silver keeps his voice low, conspiratorial. “They’re not pleased.”

“Good,” he replies tersely. This is exactly how he wants them.

“Is it?” Silver gives him a dark look. “Once you go down this road, what if there’s no turning back?”

Flint doesn’t deign his question with a response. Apparently Silver thinks his advice indispensable, now that they’ve had their hands on each other’s cocks. However, Flint is quite sure he knows more than most about roads that end in a sudden precipice and a steep drop. He doesn’t need the wise warnings of someone who’s still wet behind the ears.

After some speechifying they’re all back in the cabin, going over their strategy, which means that Hornigold is fretting about the fort, Mr. Scott tries to soothe everyone’s tempers, and Dufresne watches and glowers. And all throughout, Silver continues to shoot Flint dark looks whenever the discussion implies that the retrieval of the Urca gold will be delayed another day or two.

Flint feels as though he’s the only one able to see the big picture, the only one looking beyond immediate gain. It’s enough to do anyone’s head in, and after an hour of talks and several fingers of rum he suggests they call it a night.

Silver trails after the others. As soon as everyone else has cleared the room he turns back around to face Flint where he is sitting at the desk. His eyes have that look again, and Flint is reminded of how Silver appraised him earlier that day when he’d figured out that Flint was going to see Miranda. His bitten-off “I see,” the small snort right after. If Flint had any concern to spare, he’d have to wonder whether Silver was the jealous type.

Silver steps up to the desk and leans over it, hands braced on the surface. “How much time are we going to lose over that fort?”

His voice is a rough piece of gravel stuck in a boot after a long day. Flint wonders whether one more drink would help him deal with this, and decides against it.

“Best to let me worry about that, Mr. Silver.”

“How am I not to worry when my interests are on the line here?” Silver gestures across the battle plans on the table.

Flint considers him for a moment. He can certainly appreciate the broad palms of Silver’s hands on the desk before him, the muscular forearms bare beneath those rolled-up shirtsleeves. He wonders how his bruises are fading, now that Silver’s daily address leads to fewer violent altercations. But this is not the time. Flint’s eyes turn to steel.

_“All_ of our interests are on the line here.”

“It is only through my efforts that you’ve been able to locate the gold in the first place,” Silver insists. He doesn’t say, _Therefore you have to protect my interests, _which is wise. Flint would have a word or two to say about Silver obstructing the hunt for the _Urca_ to begin with.

Flint rolls his shoulders and sighs. “Perhaps it would do you well to remember that not all things are within your control, Mr. Silver. I’ve heard that sometimes it can even be beneficial to cede control to others.”

“Is that so?” Silver huffs an indignant breath. “Name one instance in which it would be beneficial.”

Flint only raises an eyebrow.

“Oh no,” Silver protests. “You can’t placate me like that.”

“Can’t I?”

Flint lets his gaze slide from Silver’s face to his groin. He doesn’t expect anything to come of it; for the most part, he just wants this inane conversation to end.

“You know,” Silver says with one of those infuriating smiles, “I’ll admit it is gratifying to know that there are some things Mrs. Barlow can’t provide for you.”

At that, something flips between them. The words that should sting become an offer somehow, a potential to be explored. Warm heat replaces the tired buzzing in Flint’s limbs.

“Speak her name again, and I’ll cut out your tongue,” Flint hisses, rising up, but it is more out of habit than any true malice. Silver seems to read it that way as well, because he steps around the table and leans against it next to Flint.

“Mrs. Barlow, Mrs. Barlow, Mrs. Barlow,” he chants maddeningly, tracing a finger down Flint’s chest. “No, I don’t seem to be able to summon her. You’ll have to make do with me.”

“You’re lucky your tongue is good for things other than talking.” Flint grabs a fistful of Silver’s hair and pulls him close. He can feel Silver’s breath upon his cheek, the heat radiating off him.

“You do have a way —“ Silver begins, but then Flint’s lips are on his, and his tongue is licking into Silver’s mouth, drowning out the rest of his reply.

Silver returns the kiss frantically, digging fingers into Flint’s shirt and searching for skin. When he finds some he gasps, a delicious sound against Flint’s mouth, and Flint starts unbuttoning Silver’s breeches.

Now this. This is simple. Not without dangers or pitfalls, and not always completely straightforward considering who Silver is, who they both are, but it’s _simple_, it’s easy, and that makes it a stark contrast to everything else this day has wrought. It’s something entirely possible, and so for now there’s only this: the press of their bodies against each other, heat-seeking and sharp-toothed like sharks out for blood.

Flint bites into an exposed bit of Silver’s shoulder, and Silver is already so hard for him, hot and heavy to the touch. Flint jerks him until Silver starts panting against him, grabbing at Flint’s crotch in search of retribution.

“Still want me to fuck you?” Flint whispers against Silver’s ear.

He feels more than sees Silver nodding in response, curls shaking in his face.

Flint circles his palm over Silver’s cock. “What was that?”

“Yes,” Silver breathes, “Captain.”

Flint smiles at the honorific, half-wondering if Silver’s aware of the way he’s saying it. He untangles his hands from Silver’s hair and trousers and steps away to retrieve the small vial of oil he bought at a market stall earlier.

“Undress.”

Silver obeys for once, and soon stands naked before him. It’s not the first time Flint has seen him like this, but it’s still breathtaking: the smooth planes of muscle, the tanned skin made somehow more perfect by the last lingering bruises, the paler coloring where his breeches have been.

Flint can’t help himself. Before he does anything else, he sinks to his knees and parts his lips. Just a taste — he pumps Silver’s cock and licks up his precome, before taking him deep into his mouth. He just needs to know what it feels like to have him like this, the weight and stretch of him against his throat.

“Captain… ?” Silver grunts and rolls his hips involuntarily. “Captain, I won’t be able to —“

Flint can tell by the way Silver’s cock twitches against the roof of his mouth as he laps along the underside. He promises himself he’ll get back to this no matter what, and soon, flicking his tongue one last time. Then he gets up so that Silver can catch his breath. Silver’s eyes are glazed, his whole upper body flushed under his tan.

Flint strips off his own shirt and puts a hand on Silver’s flank to turn him around. With his chest against Silver’s back, he peppers his shoulders and neck with small bites and kisses. Silver responds with a hand on Flint’s neck — and by arching his back and grinding his naked ass against Flint’s crotch. Flint’s hard cock is still covered but welcomes the friction, and his breath hitches as he bends Silver over the desk. It’s a sight to see him like this, so ready and eager for him, the smooth curve of his ass offered up before him, soon to be entirely his.

Flint backs away with a sigh and runs his hands over Silver’s butt, kneading and spreading the cheeks apart. Then, for a moment, he’s distracted, unstoppering the vial and coating his fingers with oil, and he almost misses it when Silver whispers, “I want to sit in your lap.”

Flint raises his eyebrows, looking around, and they settle on the raised platform of the windowseat. He steps out of his breeches and sits, and Silver climbs into his lap, a hand on his chest and one on his shoulder, straddling him.

“Well, this is awfully intimate,” Silver quips, as if he hadn’t requested it, and Flint flashes teeth and grabs his ass again. Silver melts against him, and this is actually so much better because now, when Flint presses a slick fingertip into his body, he can see his face, see what it does to him. Silver’s eyes go wide, and a shiver runs through him before he relaxes into the touch.

Flint works on loosening him up slowly, adding a second finger while Silver gasps into his shoulder. When their eyes meet again, Silver’s brow is furrowed and his eyes are dark pools of lust.

“Good?” Flint asks, and Silver grinds back onto his hand in response, humming his agreement.

“Believe it or not,” he pants, managing to look both wanton and sheepish, “but I don’t tend to do this on a regular basis.”

“No, I can tell,” Flint admits, and earns a chuckle at what _that_ says about him.

He won’t say how hard it gets him to see Silver like this, see him slowly giving in, giving himself over to the pleasure of having his ass opened up. It’s so good that he can feel his own cock leaking against his stomach. Flint curls his fingers, and Silver’s soft moans turn into a whine, high-pitched and pleading.

“Think you can take one more?” Flint fucks his fingers in and out, coaxing a beautiful series of moans from Silver.

“I’ll take anything, just don’t fucking stop.” Silver rocks back against him and onto a third finger, stretching him further. His voice sounds wrecked. “More, Captain, please.”

The rush of arousal makes Flint feel dizzy for a moment, and the angle is a bit awkward for three fingers anyway. Flint scissors his fingers before pulling them out and slicking up his cock. Silver eyes it greedily and grabs it to line himself up.

He sinks down on Flint’s length agonizingly slowly, biting his lower lip and breathing through the stretch. It seems to take an eternity until he’s seated snugly in Flint’s lap, filled to the brim. Flint can barely stand it. His hands shake where they come into contact with Silver’s skin, and he desperately wants to fuck up and into him, but Silver’s weight holds him in place.

“Fuck,” Silver rasps, finally. He licks his lips, and his eyes are fathomless depths that Flint could drown in.

“Goddamnit, Silver, move,” he says to break the tension, and Silver does, mercifully. He lifts himself up and then sinks part of the way down again, working his tight ring of muscle over Flint’s cock.

A lazy smile spreads over Silver’s face like a sunrise over sea, as he rides Flint with slow, shallow movements, feeling out how they fit together. Flint catches himself staring, wanting to brush a damp curl out of Silver’s blissful face. Instead, he sucks a mark into his shoulder where the shirt will cover it, one hand scrabbling for purchase at the back of Silver’s head, twisting into his hair. He wants more, more of this — he wants to sink himself deeper.

Silver makes a small, contented sound, and then, suddenly, he finds his rhythm. He’s fucking himself harder on Flint’s cock now, and when Flint bucks up to meet him he inhales sharply.

“Do that again.”

Silver’s voice is a brush of nothingness against Flint’s shoulder, and Flint obliges, pulling Silver’s hips down and driving broken moans out of him with every thrust. Silver slips a hand down to his cock, and together they fuck him into a beautiful, noisy orgasm that ends with streaks of white all over Flint’s chest and stomach.

“Should have gagged you,” Flint grumbles afterwards, rubbing a soothing hand over Silver’s thigh.

“You wouldn’t be the first.” The admission comes out softly from behind a curtain of curls. Silver is still riding his high, trembling through aftershocks.

He whimpers when Flint grabs his hips again and fucks into him harder in pursuit of his own release. But it doesn’t take long before Silver starts mumbling a string of filthy encouragements. Flint can’t make out all of it — his world has narrowed to the clenching heat of Silver’s body on top of him, to the sounds he’s made, to the hand on his beating heart and the word “Captain” that Silver keeps repeating, and then he’s there, he’s reached the precipice and is hurtling over, and oblivion crashes through him. He comes hard, white-knuckled and breathless.

When his vision clears there’s Silver’s smug grin as he slides off him, and Flint takes a moment to reacquaint himself with the laws of nature and physics, the gentle, grounding sway of the ship at anchor.

They clean themselves up, somehow, and then Silver slips away, doubtlessly to catch some well-deserved shut-eye.

When he’s dressed again Flint lies down in his hammock and feels… He’s not quite sure what he feels, but he notices that Silver’s hammock is no longer strung beside his the way it used to be in the crew’s quarters; instead, the vanguard are soon to come in from their watch. Now _these_ are the men who are actually going to be instrumental if he has to retake the fort in battle. His mind races onward, and he worries about those tunnels Hornigold told him about…

But before he can consider the flaws of his battle plan again, he is granted a second small mercy for the day. Sleep reaches out, siren-like, and pulls him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The working summary for this chapter was "from angst to anal" because I am, apparently, Like That.
> 
> Also, I was seriously struggling with this for _weeks_ before it all came together — please let me know if you enjoyed it!


	5. a crumbling empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Flint is easily distracted, and Silver has an aching problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on S02E04 (aka the one in which we all held our breaths when Silver realized that Flint cared what other people thought of him).
> 
> Also loosely inspired by [my wonderings here](https://forbiddenarchives.tumblr.com/post/189270462078/has-anyone-else-ever-wondered-why-john-silver) and [this excellent post](https://curlsandbooty.tumblr.com/post/189251125162/flint-mr-silver-may-i-have-a-word-silver) by curlsandbooty.

Silver is still slightly shaken when he reaches Nassau beach and jumps out of the launch. The water glitters next to the jetty, a stunning turquoise that he doesn’t have eyes for right now. The air is warm, and it’s a glorious day by most metrics, most of them meaningless to him.

He scans the tents, takes in the general mood of the place.

He can’t believe he’s said it. He just can’t believe it.

People are flocking towards the small space between the tanner and the carpenter, on the path leading into town. He’ll want to position his man out on the beach, just a little way off, draw the crowd without being too obvious about it. It won’t do if Silver’s the one making the appeal — it’s too transparent, and besides: he walked through town with Flint yesterday, he might already be recognizable as a _Walrus_ man.

Flint.

He’s always had a difficult time keeping his mouth shut, but he thought —

Somehow that icy disappointment had been worse than anything else, worse than Hornigold’s pity even.

Silver finds a man called Hindley who’s not above earning a little coin for a bit of play-acting, and goes over his plan with him.

It’ll do. It’s a start.

He was still grappling with the situation earlier when he said it, angry at having to sit through that strategy meeting desperately willing his cock to go down while the others coolly debated the best points of attack.

He positions Hindley just far enough away that he can be overheard by the men, and then disappears into the crowd that begins to form.

And the day had started so well.

* * *

_Several hours earlier…_

Silver crawls back into his hammock. For all intents and purposes he should be in the galley, but it soon became clear that Hornigold’s cook didn’t need much assistance when it came to handing out the morning’s rations. Silver had filled his belly, and slipped away halfway through his shift without anyone the wiser.

He just wants to doze a tiny bit longer, drift off into pleasant unconsciousness. Lie suspended in the delicious tension in his abdomen that he woke up to earlier. Reality would assert itself soon enough, but he’s always had a preference for the fantastic, for the improbable promise of dreams.

He sways in his hammock for a while, trying to get back to that floating state. But the same images break through the surface again and again, upsetting his equanimity and crowding out the last vestiges of sleep with something decidedly more urgent.

One of his hands finds its way into his breeches and onto his cock. He thinks of Flint’s teeth at his shoulder, his hands on his hips where he’s got a matching set of imprints today. The intense focus on his face as he fucked into him that first time. The way Flint had looked when he’d stilled and spilled himself inside him: like he’d been shot, only infinitely better, all air punched out of him by the force of the impact.

The way he looks when he’s merely standing on deck in that coat, barking orders.

He’s just getting to a good spot when Muldoon turns up at the edge of his vision.

“Jesus Christ!” Silver startles and swears. He feels his release wash away from him on a wave of embarrassment.

“Sorry. Captain’s been looking for ye.” Muldoon’s gaze flickers to where he’s still got his hand down his trousers. “It’s urgent, he said.”

“Of course,” Silver grumbles, extricating himself in as dignified a way as possible. “Of course it’s urgent.”

Muldoon shoots him a sympathetic smile somewhere between “not to worry” and “captains, eh?” before turning away to give him some privacy. Silver nods towards his disappearing form and rakes a hand through his hair.

After a few deep breaths and some strategic adjustments he judges himself decent enough to go and see what his captain wants.

* * *

“Lock the doors, please,” is all Flint says when Silver enters the cabin. The space is deserted save for them, and Flint slouches in his chair like a ruined king overlooking a crumbling empire.

“You wanted to discuss something with me?” Silver rounds the desk and comes to a halt in front of him, hooking his thumbs into his belt.

“The others are still at mess.” Flint locks eyes with Silver, as though willing him to understand. “Then we’ll go over our plans.”

Silver raises his eyebrows, and Flint holds his gaze. Then he discreetly rubs the heel of his hand over what Silver can now see is a telltale bulge in his breeches.

“I need a clear head, Silver. I can’t be distracted all fucking day.”

Oh.

Silver licks his lips, and Flint’s gaze flicks to his mouth.

Silver can’t help himself. “Have you tried commanding it to stand down?” he suggests, and then amends, mock-serious, “I’m sorry you’ve lost the use of both of your hands, Captain. This is a dire predicament.”

Flint’s eyes flash fire, and there’s a twitch in his cheek, but Silver doesn’t want to gloat too much. He’s keenly aware that this is the first time he hasn’t been the one to approach Flint for whatever this is between them. This is the first time he hasn’t had to poke and prod at Flint to draw out a desire that still baffles him a little. Instead, Flint has sent for him, waited in his cabin for him. Made himself vulnerable to him in a very specific way. Warmth pools in Silver’s stomach, and he wonders how Flint is going to compensate for such an obvious show of hand.

Flint just snorts. “I suggest you get on your knees, Mr. Silver, or you get the hell out.”

All right, perhaps not so vulnerable.

Even so, a flush has crept into Flint’s face and is slowly spreading down to his neck. Silver realizes that this might also be the first time they’re about to do it in broad daylight, and that’s definitely intriguing. Men’s steps echo into the cabin from the upper deck, and he can hear the crew members’ voices from far-off.

Meanwhile, Flint is opening his legs and nestling at his breeches, and Silver thinks he can almost smell his arousal — not that he isn’t embarrassingly hard himself just looking at him. When their eyes lock he can see something there, something worn and warm, somewhere in those stormy depths, and that decides it.

Silver kneels in the open V of Flint’s legs, sliding a hand over the fabric on each thigh. Looking up at Flint, he finds an unexpected fondness on his face, just as a freckled hand reaches out to cup his cheek.

“You’re sucking me off after,” Silver mutters into the hand, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

“I want nothing more,” Flint says simply, and Silver is going to take this assurance even though he doesn’t believe in it in the slightest. And then he forgets everything else because Flint tilts his jaw and strokes his thumb over Silver’s mouth.

He parts his lips to allow Flint access, and the thumb breaches him, a hint and a promise of what’s to come. Silver sucks on Flint’s finger, and Flint’s face goes slack, eyes half-lidded. After a moment, the thumb is removed, and two fingers press in instead. Silver swirls his tongue over them, and Flint fucks his fingers in and out of his mouth. He pulls them out with a guttered breath.

“Shit,” he pants, “you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Silver nips at his fingers in lieu of a reply, and saliva smears over his face as the fingers he’s sucked on settle on his cheek. Flint traces the outline of his mouth with his thumb. It comes to rest in the middle of his lower lip, and drags it down for a thoughtful moment. Silver feels himself weighed up, hanging in the balance.

He’s just about to push Flint’s breeches down when Flint’s hand circles to the back of his head, pulling his face into his lap. Flint’s hard cock strains against the fabric and presses into his cheek, and if Silver wasn’t so turned on he’d probably take offense, but well.

Flint rolls his hips as much as the seated position will allow him, seeking friction, and Silver gasps into a muscular thigh. This would certainly be a good way to go, buried in Flint’s crotch, but hopefully that can wait until after they’ve secured the gold. With a playful bite into a soft inner thigh, he shakes free. Flint hisses as he lets him up, looking slightly bashful, and Silver continues his work on those breeches.

Soon enough Flint’s cock is freed, rising proudly from a patch of copper and gold. Silver traces the length of it with his fingertips before curling his fist around it loosely. He moves the foreskin back and forth, and Flint lets go of a shaky exhale when he brings his mouth to the exposed tip. Instead of sucking Flint’s cock into his mouth, though, he rubs it over his lips, wetting them with Flint’s precome. Silver flicks his tongue out and licks his lips before following the taste to Flint’s slit and lapping it up. When he glances up Flint looks like he’s coming apart already, color high in his cheekbones, eyes hazy.

Silver licks a wet stripe from root to tip. With a hand on the shaft, he lavishes Flint’s cock with attention without quite letting it enter his mouth: small kitten licks and nibbles, a tongue exploring Flint’s slit and ridge and frenulum. Flint’s breath starts coming faster, and a hand reaches out to him, fingers curling around his shoulder.

“You fucking tease,” Flint grits out, but Silver knows a compliment when he hears one.

He continues teasing, and when he finally closes his lips around the head Flint looks at him as if he’s invented cocksucking, and oh, that does something for Silver, too.

Slowly, he sinks down on Flint’s length, bobbing his head as he takes it deeper. He sets a soft counterpoint with his hand while his mouth makes wet noises around Flint’s cock. Silver hums into it. Flint smells of the heady scent of his arousal: musky and manly, and also, Silver now realizes, faintly of soap. Something floral, even.

He redoubles his efforts with a low moan — he’ll suck Flint’s cock every day if these are the luxuries that come with it. Above him, Flint’s breath catches, and then the hand on his shoulder winds into his hair.

“Look at you.” Flint tucks a curl behind his ear, his voice hoarse. “You take it so well.”

Silver hums his agreement, and Flint cradles the back of his head with his hand. He doesn’t guide Silver down so much as accompany his movements, making gentle suggestions here and there.

“That’s it,” Flint groans when his cock hits the back of Silver’s throat. “Let me see how deep you can take it.”

Silver does his best, and he can’t take all of it, but Flint’s fractured praises have him rock hard and willing to try. He wants to do this for Flint, wants Flint to have him in any way he pleases. He gives a broken noise of approval when Flint ruts upwards and into his throat.

“Do you like this?” Flint asks when he comes up for air.

Silver nods without meeting his eyes, still focused on Flint’s cock between his lips.

“I don’t wish to hurt you,” Flint insists, and Silver’s stomach flips.

He touches Flint’s hand in encouragement and sinks down again — if Flint can still speak in full sentences, he’s not doing this right. He only needs to push himself down on Flint’s cock a couple of times before Flint fists his hair and fucks into his mouth again. Silver’s eyes water, and he’s making some truly obscene noises now, but he also relishes being needed like this, in this raw, primal way. He can be good, he can be so useful for Flint.

He feels a dizzying thrill at being nothing but a tight channel for someone else’s pleasure, but then he also wants to draw this out, draw it out until Flint is a mess. He wants it to be his doing when Flint comes to pieces beneath him.

Silver moves back up to the tip of Flint’s cock, breathing in deeply. He blinks tears from his lashes, hoping they will go unnoticed. There’s a soft, soothing scratch at his scalp that he elects to ignore.

With a hand wrapped around Flint’s shaft he sets up a steady rhythm. Flint brushes the hair out of his face and cups his cheek, and Silver tongues and teases at Flint’s length while he sucks him. It’s having the intended effect, judging by the panted breaths above him, and a short while later he is nudged off with a broken groan.

“You don’t have to —“ Flint rasps, but Silver is already ghosting his lips over his length again.

“I’ve got you.”

He smiles and sinks down on it once more, flutters his tongue against the sensitive spots he’s marked out. Flint tightens his grip in Silver’s hair and ruts into him. Then he tenses and groans, and his come starts spurting into Silver’s mouth in hot, rapid pulses.

Silver has to swallow or else drool with Flint’s release, and a bit of both happens before Flint goes still and boneless. Silver pulls off and laps at the come he’s missed, and then Flint is dragging him up into a breathless kiss. Warm, soft lips meet his, and Silver feels his world spin on its axis, the unknown at the edge of the map rearing up to swallow him whole.

When they break apart they’re both slightly come-smeared.

Flint is just about to open Silver’s breeches when the door handle rattles. The door shakes in its hinges with the surprise of whoever is trying to open it, not expecting it to be locked.

“Flint?” Hornigold’s voice rings through the door. “Flint, what the hell’s going on?”

Flint has pulled out Silver’s cock, which is truly painfully hard at this point, and he’s looking up at Silver in an unspoken question.

There’s more banging at the door, and Silver wants nothing more than to push his cock into Flint’s fist, or his mouth, or anything, really — his hips are rutting forward into empty air of their own accord. He _needs_ it so badly he can hardly think straight, but then Flint’s expression changes into something approaching an apology, and his stomach sinks.

Flint’s mouth opens, but before he can say something insincere about how sorry he is that they don’t have more time, Silver pulls back. Somehow he manages to tuck himself away.

“It doesn't matter,” he mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He motions for Flint to do the same — there are still traces of come in his beard.

They right their clothes, and then Silver takes up position on one of the windowseats, trying to fade into the background. He knew what he was getting into, and he tries hard not to be disappointed about it. This is all there is to it, this is what Flint wanted, so he leaves it to Flint to unlock the door and resolve the situation.

Flint does so in the way only he could: by not explaining a single thing. He just stares Hornigold down, daring him to comment, and Hornigold wisely chooses not to.

But Silver can’t escape the look that the older captain shoots him once he spots him on the other side of the room. He looks at Silver the way people stare at an animal carcass at the side of the road, or an injured horse that needs to be shot. It’s a look of detached, fatherly pity, and Silver feels reduced to a tiny, insignificant thing, a bug easily crushed underfoot.

He infers that the cabin must reek of them — of their sweat, their arousal, and Flint’s come — and that everyone can tell, once they’re in here: Hornigold, Dufresne, De Groot, Scott. They’re all sure to know what a fucked-in room smells like. Meanwhile, he still has Flint’s scent in his nose, and his aftertaste burning down his throat, his seed hot in his stomach.

Shame washes through him at the thought that Flint doesn’t seem to mind the interruption. He’s got what he wanted, after all, what he sent for. Silver is a fool to think otherwise. To think that there was something fragile blooming between them when they just kissed — ? No, that would be the idle fantasy of a schoolboy.

Silver never even went to school. He really ought to know better.

He smirks sadly when Flint clears his throat to signal the beginning of the meeting and pours himself some rum. Silver eyes the glass, but it’s not like Flint can offer him anything. John Silver the cook, now demoted to cabin boy. Called upon to service his captain.

The only saving grace is that, after a while, his erection fades into a dull ache from the implications of it. At least he doesn’t have to deal with that anymore. Focus on the gold, that’s what he needs to do. It’s the whole reason he’s got himself into this mess in the first place. The gold needs to be his connection to Flint, nothing else.

Hornigold’s words from the day before run through his head: _How can you stand so close to him, knowing what he’s capable of?_ He defended Flint then, winces at it now.

Silver is relieved when everyone’s attention is drawn to the maps on the desk. And if sometimes a look flies his way — who’s to say what is meant by it? He’s here to watch over his interests, nothing more.

At some point, Eleanor Guthrie bursts in with a message from Vane, and Flint asks to talk to her in private. Silver knows then that he’s lost him. He knows that the day’s events are taking over, developing their own momentum, and he slips past the others and into the galley. Finally, he’s able to drink some watered-down ale and rinse out his mouth. Get rid of that last taste of something more.

He rejoins the meeting out of sheer spite after that. Let them think he doesn’t belong — he’ll show them. He’ll find a way, he’ll make himself belong.

He’s used to it, after all.

* * *

Flint stops him just as he’s about to leave. His voice is quiet, without the undertone of command he’s used with the others.

“Why do you think they went up that hill?”

“Beg your pardon?” Silver tries to buy time, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat at the fact that Flint is asking about the fort, about Vane. What else could there be that’s worth talking about?

When he turns around Flint is fiddling with the instruments on the desk. “If we’re to stop any more men from joining his side,” he explains, not looking up, “isn’t it a prerequisite that we try and understand the thinking of those who have already joined him?”

“Sorry, are you asking my opinion?” Silver can’t quite keep the sarcasm from slipping into his voice.

Flint licks his lips and makes eye contact for the first time since they were interrupted by Hornigold earlier. So Silver sits down in the chair in front of him and cobbles together a vague theory about Vane and why the pirates of Nassau might feel drawn to him.

“But … perhaps it’s just them expressing their opinions about you,” he finishes, unable to keep the little dig to himself.

“So you think that they see me as the villain in this particular story?” Flint’s tone is carefully neutral.

Silver’s nostrils flare. “I think that would explain their decision, yes.”

“And you? What do you think?” Flint gives him a long, loaded look. “You see me as the villain here?” His voice goes high on the last word, and there is a softness in his eyes that tugs at something Silver only wants to bury deeper. Flint is unguarded, and looking for an impossible reassurance.

“I see you as the agent most likely of securing my share of the gold on that beach,” Silver says with some deliberation. “As long as that remains true, I am not bothered in the least by whatever labels anyone else tries to affix to you.”

If the day had gone differently, maybe he would have said something else — maybe Flint would have _been_ someone else to him, then. But he’s come to a decision. And Flint can’t quite keep looking at him when he hears it. His eyelashes flutter, and his gaze falters.

“Why?” Silver asks, confused that Flint thinks _he’s_ the one hurting here. “What do you think about it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?” Silver leans back on the chair as a new understanding of the ruthless pirate captain before him slots into place. “What they think? With the things you've done… My god.”

And then. Then he says it. He has no idea why, but now that he’s found a single vulnerable spot on the man sitting across from him, he needs to dig his fingers deeper into the wound.

“It must be awful being you.”

Flint’s eyes turn to ice, and his face shutters. He throws Silver out with two curt sentences, his mask firmly back in place.

“Time is short. You’d better be off.”

* * *

Later that day, Silver watches over Billy, who is lying on the floor of a hut on that sorry excuse for a mattress. Good old sand-crusted Billy.

Silver considers his options, makes arrangements. It’s what he always does.

He cleans Billy up, gets him water, and shackles him, just in case. He tells Billy about Gates and what happened after.

He makes his rounds, drawing up support for Flint’s cause, and tries his best to keep Billy’s return from upsetting this volatile situation. Having Randall around helps, not for the first time.

He does what he needs to do to obtain the most favorable outcome. In the end, it’s only natural that for any thing returned from the dead, something else has to take its place.

Flint is on the warship, and Silver is on the beach, and whatever they had is floating drowned in the water that separates them. He tries not to think of it, tries not to think of the fact that he’s still here, doing Flint’s bidding.

He was wrong, and he knew it as he said it, but he had to say it anyway. He always has to say it anyway.

It’s not awful being Flint.

Silver can think of something much worse.


	6. the eye, or the stomach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Flint considers his love(s), and the direction of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on S02E05 and E06, especially those moments with Flint and Miranda and her confronting him with the _Meditations_.

When they make landfall on Nassau beach, Flint’s first action is to ask Mr. Dufresne to find Silver for him. Launches are arriving all around them from the warship, and further up the beach, men are checking on their tents and belongings in the aftermath of the attack. Smoke is curling into the midday sky like a question mark, waiting to be resolved, and the gash torn into the side of the fort’s defenses beckons to Flint, a siren’s call to come and _take_.

But first, he has to find Silver. He’s their man on the ground, and he didn’t return from the beach yesterday, which means he’s been in Nassau for the entirety of their assault. Flint isn’t worried, as such—he trusts Silver’s instincts for self-preservation. Still, there is a gnawing feeling somewhere in his guts that Silver’s absence is meaningful.

They didn’t exactly part on good terms the day before. And while that shouldn’t bother him, he finds that remaining unbothered in the presence of Silver is an art form he’s yet to master—and he’s tried. Perhaps he should have known better than to ask Silver’s opinion when he was almost out the door yesterday. He’d entertained a vague hope to get a better feel for what had happened earlier, before they were so rudely interrupted. Something had shifted between them yet again, mercurial like Silver himself. The ensuing conversation had gone badly, but with the cabin doors wide open behind them, what could he have said? “I hate sending you away like this, and by the way, what you did for me was sublime”?

Hardly.

He hadn’t even meant to suggest for Silver to do what he did. But when the man had used his clever tongue to mock him—well. A point had to be made. Clearly.

Originally, he’d wanted to use his mouth on Silver, lick every gorgeous inch of him. Even now, he still wants it badly. He was struck dumb when Silver didn’t let him reciprocate, and then upset with himself for not acting more quickly, for letting them run out of time because he got so caught up in the moment that he let the chance just slip through his fingers.

But it was done. With a day’s distance and a grim morning spent bombing the fort, Flint doesn’t hold Silver’s words against him. They stung, yes. But, on the whole, Flint is a man of reason. He is capable of admitting a truth when it is spoken to him, even a painful one. He has few illusions about himself, and while he does put things out of mind when necessary, it was mainly a fear of being seen—of being recognized for who and what he is—that had him react the way he did.

It is always a shock to be seen so clearly. Not everyone has the eye, or the stomach, for it.

Now there’s a gaping hole in Vane’s fort, putting all of Nassau at risk. People have been killed, and not just Vane’s men. Flint knows how even the most well-aimed shots can go wide, and he’s seen a few fly wildly off-target. They’re about to mount their attack, courting more carnage, and Silver is nowhere to be found.

Flint half-listens to Hornigold, who outlines their next steps while they walk into town, and then there she is, an apparition among the men, some of whom are openly staring at her.

Miranda.

Miranda with her hair pulled back and in one of those dresses that she wears now, drained of all color and spirit.

* * *

They end up in one of the rooms above Eleanor’s tavern. The space has an unreal air, now that it’s empty of all people, and the parlor upstairs is bare and quiet, furnished with a table and chairs. It takes Flint a moment to change tack, to understand what Miranda is telling him about the girl, and about Peter Ashe.

He remembers Peter from the Hamiltons’ salons. A tall man with a serious face, he became a fixture later on, the only person to stand with them when Thomas held firm on the pardons.

Thomas.

Merely thinking his name, hearing it fall from Miranda’s lips, even with such care—it still sends a shock of vertigo through him, a roiling in his guts, the sudden urge to hold on to a steady surface.

Now Miranda is sitting in front of him and sketching the outline of a plan no less bold than Thomas’ pardons. She means to get a hold of Abigail Ashe, sail for Carolina, and present Peter—now governor—with his daughter safe and sound. The return of the girl would be a good deed, a way to prove his character to a known pirate hunter, and a foot in the door to a discussion about the future of Nassau, all in one. There is so much Flint wants to say in protest, starting with the current location of the girl, but Miranda has an answer for every single one of his objections.

“There is no other way, once you’re willing to tell the truth about your intentions here,” she concludes, fierce and determined, confident in the merits of her argument like all the best women he’s known.

“I think I’ve made my intentions very clear,” Flint argues back because she’s pulling the ground out from under him. He came into town today set on destruction, and now all of his plans are threatening to become obsolete. If he changes his course of action now, his whole gamble with Nassau’s safety will have been for nothing. The time spent here and not going after the Urca gold will have been for nothing.

“No,” Miranda says. “You’ve been anything but clear.”

And then their argument escalates, and he only remembers fragments afterwards, the darkness at the edge of his vision, the feeling of being cornered and lashing out.

“I think you are fighting for the sake of fighting,” she says, and that he’s still ashamed—ashamed of his love for Thomas. Which is not something he’s going to debate with her. It’s not something she can ever fully understand. Thomas must have told her at some point, with his characteristic frankness, his blithe disregard for consequences, and the thought of that always makes his blood boil, too—Miranda has no right to it. She has no right to his innermost feelings like that.

At the same time he knows that he’d let Thomas divulge all of his lovestruck confessions if only it meant they could have him back.

Miranda sets the book down in front of him before she leaves. She must have brought it with her for this express purpose—to remind him, to rattle him. For a moment, he expects to feel resentment, but instead there is something else, bittersweet.

He sits completely still and lets his fingers trail over the bindings. He doesn’t need to open the _Meditations_ to know what the inscription says, but he does so anyway, caresses the bold flourishes of Thomas’ hand, so like the man.

The grief still hits him unexpectedly sometimes. That initial gut-punch feeling, the sensation of having the breath knocked out of him, has settled into a quiet desperation, shifting through the years, but never quite fading. Once he thought killing Alfred Hamilton might help both him and Miranda break free, but on the other side of it there was only another facet of the same old prison, a prism breaking the light apart.

At the same time, the grief can be useful. It can be cultivated and honed into a sharp, tight rage. The rage is easier to live with than the knowledge of the true nature of what he’s lost.

He remembers Thomas kissing the palm of his hand, the inside of his wrist when he first gave him the book, trying to gentle the playful teasing inherent in gifting him, the hot-head, the work of a stoic. “Open it,” Thomas had asked. The glint in his blue eyes had taken on a more vulnerable hue. He had extracted his hand from Thomas’ caresses and opened the book, and been quiet for a while. Thomas was just about to speak again when he’d closed his mouth with a kiss, and then another, and another, he kissed his face and his cheeks and his eyelids and told him he loved him, and Thomas let out a breath he must have been holding this whole time.

He had never said those words before. He didn’t know if he could until it had already happened, and when they made love again later it was familiar but also completely different, reverent, made new. They lost themselves in it and were found again, and nothing so pure could be sinful, he had thought, because Thomas had seen him, truly seen. He hadn’t thought it could be this way between men, but it was.

And then they’d lost it so carelessly, a sickening churning sinking feeling, bile rising from his stomach. Nightmares in which the world ended every day for a week, and it wasn’t because he was seasick, like Miranda. The pervasive feeling of wrongness, that this wasn’t what should have happened. It should have been different. He’d somehow taken a wrong turn, and stumbled into this other world, a false world, and Thomas was gone.

Something had shattered, and shattered again when the news of Thomas’ death reached them.

Nothing had ever been as meaningful, and nothing could be, that much was certain.

Although now he thinks with a start that meaning isn’t found, or stumbled upon by accident through a chance assignment from the Admiralty. Meaning is created. It’s made and remade every day from acts of service and love and vulnerability, given to one another in good faith like the book before him. His relationship with Thomas was meaningful because they chose to give it meaning, to open themselves up to the possibility. Just as he’s chosen to keep his distance from everyone in the aftermath, even from Miranda, a lot of the time, which isn’t fair to her at all.

He’s been shut off and solitary, and he’s continued that way, even as captain, even with Gates who had been a friend to him. This is where his actions have led, something that can’t ever be undone. Is that how he means to continue?

Perhaps this is a chance to choose a different path, to build something in the absence of Thomas, in that hollow space left by his loss. Not to obscure him, but to honor him. With Miranda, maybe even—

Before he can finish the thought, there is a shifting of air behind him, a shadow falls across the light, and then Vane is upon him. He is half man and half beast, his power augmented by a blade that catches the light against Flint’s face.

They fall to the floor, locked in an embrace that couldn’t be any further from being amorous, but one that is just as fatal.

* * *

A while later, Vane and Flint lie panting on the floor, separated by Eleanor and her gun. Eleanor’s father is there, as well as Miranda, and in light of their company they attempt to discuss the plan to return Abigail Ashe in as civil a manner as possible. It doesn’t go as smoothly as Flint would have liked, now that he’s committed to this new course of action. Richard Guthrie has doubts. Vane has demands. And Flint? Flint doesn’t even have the girl.

Still, when he stands on the front porch of the tavern with Miranda later, everything seems lighter somehow. He tells Miranda to head back to their house while he takes care of the business at hand.

“I’ll be home… if you’ll have me,” he adds, and it feels good to offer this to her. To let her decide his fate. It’s been a long time since he’s felt such a glowing fondness inside his chest. He’s not used to it anymore.

Miranda, on the other hand, doesn’t only accept his offer. She requests more. She wants to remain in Nassau for the sake of Abigail, but also, it appears, for her own reasons.

“You and Peter weren’t the only ones committed to seeing Nassau set aright,” she says. “You weren’t the only one who paid a heavy toll towards that end. I stood aside too long. If you and I are to be partners… then we ought to be partners.”

Her brown eyes fix him with a warmth that has something lift and loosen in his stomach, as if his insides are arranged right side up again all of a sudden.

“Very well,” he says. He wants to touch her, embrace her, make good on the promise in her smile, when a voice interrupts them.

He’d know that voice anywhere.

“Captain.”

It’s Silver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters might be a bit more spaced out for a while because I'm writing the next four all at once, it seems. 
> 
> The good news is that there will be more chapters overall because there's no way I'll be able to wrap this up in 10 with everything I want to do. 
> 
> Thank you all for following along so far, and for all of the lovely comments and support!


	7. a more suitable option

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Silver is haunted by the past and makes a decision about the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of S02E06 from Silver’s perspective. 
> 
> This chapter picks up directly where the last one left off. 
> 
> I've got all the rest of the fic mapped out and bits and pieces of the next few chapters drafted—thanks for being patient with me as I figure out how to put it all together in a way that makes for a worthwhile story!

“Captain.”

Silver finds Flint on the porch of the Guthrie tavern, and with him a slim woman, her face framed by neat dark hair. He’s been told about her—he’s heard the stories, and he knew there was a good chance she would be here, and yet his stomach lurches when he sees her, takes in the way Flint is looking at her.

It’s true, then. The captain’s mysterious companion is no longer inland, no longer a matter of pure speculation. She’s a woman of flesh and blood and soft pale skin, so small next to Flint, but with a presence Silver wasn’t quite prepared for.

Her gaze skewers him in seconds, leaving him ransacked, and his mind flashes back to that moment in Flint’s cabin when he invoked her name to taunt him with it. He flushes with the absurd knowledge that he has summoned her after all, which is ridiculous. It feels true nonetheless. And now she’s here, he’s made her real, and Flint is looking at her with such tenderness that it makes his heart seize up.

Something unspoken passes between them, and with a last look at Flint she slips away into the tavern. For a short moment Silver can breathe more easily, but then Flint steps down from the porch to meet him, and all the tenderness has gone out of his eyes. Silver has to swallow against the sudden pressure in his throat.

“There’s been a development,” Flint says, and yeah, Silver can see that. In fact, Silver is trying his best to forget about whatever developments have happened here, as evidenced by Flint’s casual intimacy with the woman, by this private current of energy that he’s unwillingly been privy to. “I’m on my way down to the beach to inform the men.”

Flint starts towards him, but Silver holds up his hand. The last thing he needs right now is Flint in his personal space, close enough that he can make out his pale eyelashes against his skin. “Before you do that,” he says. “There’s something you need to know. There’s been a development down there, too.”

He tells Flint about Billy’s reappearance while they make their way to the beach. It’s not a long walk by any means, but it's the closest thing to privacy they've had in a while, and Flint is such a solid presence next to him, almost magnetic, that he seems to bend the day’s events around him. People stop and look and part for them in a way they didn’t when it was just Silver, and it makes Silver want to bend, too. He wants to reach out and touch, run his fingers over the coarse fabric of Flint’s shirt and the warm skin underneath it. He hasn’t been this close to Flint since he’s knelt before him the other day, leaning over his lap to take his cock into his mouth. He wonders if Flint would still smell faintly of soap, if he’d wind his fingers into his hair again, caress his cheek, a touch so soft he doesn’t even deserve it.

The memory of their encounter comes unbidden and with an extra layer of misery. This is not for him. This was never for him, and he’s only insinuated himself into it, trying to gain an advantage. He should be satisfied with what he has—he’s secured for himself a position of some minor influence, and he’s alive, beautifully, brilliantly alive.

Still, it feels as if he’s missed his mark completely. Something inside him itches for more, wants to touch and taste and feel again. He wants to wrap himself around Flint and be engulfed by his heat, his hot mouth on his own, his warm body against his—

Silver shakes his head, making his curls jump. The gold will set him free from all of this. It will stop this disconcerting feeling that he’s lost a game he didn’t even know he was playing.

This is how Flint works, he’s been told, over and over again. He takes people and he uses them up, consuming them like the fire his name portends.

With a man like this, it’s only natural that there should be sparks.

It’ll go away if he lets it.

* * *

Later, when Billy is welcomed back onto the crew, Silver stands aside and watches as Flint draws their old boatswain into a hug. It’s a gesture that’s mostly for show, Silver knows as much, but it still awakens a spiky, complicated feeling in his gut to see Billy pressed against the broad expanse of Flint’s chest. Billy is important enough that Flint has to respect him, or at least pretend to. It’s an envious position to be in if one can manage it—which can’t be said of Silver.

Or of Hornigold, as they are quick to find out when Flint reveals his new plan to sail for Charlestown. Hornigold complains about being cast aside on a whim, which sounds awfully familiar to Silver’s ears, and then he complicates their day further by challenging Flint as captain over their combined crew.

As the afternoon draws on, Silver counts the men’s votes and keeps Flint informed of the numbers. The actual voting won’t take place until nightfall, but Flint has requested regular updates while he keeps up appearances outside one of the huts. He’s simply taken for granted that Silver will be at his disposal, an underling for him to command. As if he was a pawn to be moved about in Flint’s grand game of chess. Silver doesn’t know whether he should be flattered or furious.

It would help, too, if Flint didn’t look so infuriatingly calm, sitting there at his makeshift table in the shade, with food and drink provided for him. He’s leaning back, his thighs open, legs spread comfortably, and Silver wishes he didn’t remember what it felt like to straddle that lap and sink down slowly, with Flint’s arms around him.

Every moment in Flint’s company is now also another moment entirely; they’re doubled up together, the present haunted by the past. It’s not a sensation that Silver appreciates, to say the least, as he leans against the railing opposite Flint, keeping a safe distance. He only wishes he could do something—anything—to upset Flint’s equilibrium.

And he does need to know where they stand. This time he won’t be kept wondering.

Silver takes a deep breath as he sits down on the bench opposite Flint. The closeness is searing, but his anger fortifies him.

“So what happens if we win the vote and the girl isn’t delivered in a timely fashion?” he asks, poking holes into Flint’s new plan. “Vane reneges, delays to achieve better terms. Certainly these are plausible outcomes. How long do we wait for the situation to resolve itself?”

“The gold is still a priority,” Flint insists, but it sounds rehearsed. “There’s been no change in that.” When Silver presses his lips together, Flint doubles down on the lie. “You have my word.”

And it _is_ a lie, Silver knows it, with a sudden clarity that nauseates him. The girl changes _everything_, and for Flint to say that she doesn’t—it throws everything else into question. The abrupt change in his plans can only mean that the gold and the girl are two different means to very similar—perhaps even the same—ends. Therefore, when one of the two is available, the other becomes superfluous.

What hurts even more than the lie, though, is the fact that Flint assumes he is dense enough to believe it. That's how little he thinks of him. Flint puts on a good show, Silver will give him that, and if he was any other man on the crew, he might have been taken in by the insistence in Flint’s eyes and his sudden show of openness and sincerity. But Silver isn’t any other man.

He’ll pretend to be like any other, though. He’ll pretend to be just as dumb as Flint thinks he is, turning his stunned bafflement into a sigh of relief.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” he says with a cheerfulness he doesn’t feel. He gets up with a stomp of his boots and a faked smile, unwilling to remain in Flint’s company for a moment longer. “I should get to work. I’ll keep you apprised of the numbers.”

“You do that.” Flint doesn’t meet his eyes as he leaves, and that confirms it. Not that he’s had any doubts.

Silver rounds the table while Flint makes a show of studying his ledger. As soon as he’s turned away, his face falls.

So this is it. Flint’s priorities have changed, and the Urca gold has been written off. That’s how easy it is for him to go back on his word. That’s how quickly his allegiance can change.

Fire doesn’t care what it consumes, it only cares to feed itself.

“Mr. Silver! A moment.”

Just as Silver leaves the hut behind, he is accosted by one of the crewmen.

He has to pull himself together as the day gets grimmer around him. Now there are bodies involved, apparently. Another mess for him to clean up.

Over the next few hours, as he counts votes and takes care of business, his thoughts keep circling back to Flint, mulling things over.

The gold was his lifeline, his way out of a never-ending cycle. It was his means to get away from everything and start over, become the person he was meant to be. Now, much like the Urca gold, he has been considered, perhaps even wanted for a short time, and then discarded when something else came along. A more suitable option.

It feels too familiar: the helpless churning of being passed over in favor of someone better, something more important. He’s worked hard never to feel this way again, but still the cycle has managed to repeat itself.

This is where the gold comes in, and this time he won’t be denied. He’s not helpless anymore. He knows what to do now. He’s learned; he can take care of himself.

A resolution begins to form as he stands over the dead bodies of Logan and the woman Logan couldn’t keep away from, lying in a pool of their own blood.

If that’s what it takes to keep himself safe, he will betray Captain Flint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
> Comments of any kind are always welcome and help endlessly to stay motivated when the story resists being written down.


	8. lines in the sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Flint and Silver clash, and things turn out well for a change??

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knowww, it's been ages. Life got extremely busy over the summer, and there was little time to even think about writing. Thankfully, there's a bit more time now. 
> 
> This picks up at S02E07, just as Silver shows up with Vincent and that other guy, pretending that all the Urca gold is lost.

All right, so perhaps he was a trifle gruff when he greeted Silver with “Where the fuck have you been”, the words coming out harsher than he had intended. But Silver has to take this seriously, he has to realize what’s at stake. And he was cutting it awfully close right there, too close for Flint’s comfort, with Hornigold already in the middle of his speech.

If Flint was alone right now, alone and unobserved by any of the men around him, he’d rub his hands over his face, just for the reassuring feel of his own familiar fingers. As it is, he swallows the impulse, the kindness stuck in his throat.

This is not just about the captaincy. It is about the future of Nassau, the future of New Providence Island and its chance to become a self-governing entity. It’s about gaining a measure of peace and independence that is unheard of, unprecedented.

It’s not about himself and his position as the crew’s captain, or if it is, then only as a stepping stone on the way to a grander goal. A goal that someone like Silver has probably never even dreamed about. _(But then you’ve never told him about it either, have you?,_ a quiet voice inside his head asks. _It’s not as if you’ve given him a chance to understand.) _

He can’t afford to fail now. Not when everything he has worked towards for months is so close at hand.

And if Silver and he have grown close, become familiar with each other in unforeseen ways, he needs to be smart about it. He needs to remain focused. There is a delicate line between what they’ve done in the privacy of his cabin and his role as captain, and he can’t let one be influenced by the other. Perhaps there are some vague hopes he has entertained, brief flashes of a sort of companionship he hasn’t felt for another man for years. But there’s little time for any of that right now. No matter his personal tendency toward sentiment, towards attachments of the most inconvenient sort—he can’t be seen having a soft spot for anyone, much less the ship’s cook. The men would think he was abusing his power in the worst of ways, and perhaps he is.

So when Silver returns just as Hornigold starts gaining the crew’s favor, Flint forces himself to be angry instead of weak, and to show nothing of his relief. The night is still oppressively warm, and the atmosphere has grown equally heated. The men are eager to cast their votes and move on: they want to expend their restless energy, either by taking the fort or by indulging in a well-deserved night off, complete with drink and debauchery.

And Silver is… there’s a tension in him that wasn’t there before, a hard twist to his face as he explains that a launch has landed on the beach, bearing important news. He is so close that Flint can feel the heat radiating off him, the tantalizing scent of his sweat. A single droplet runs down his collarbone and disappears into his shirt, and he wants to lick it off him, close his teeth around the bone until Silver yelps.

“What the fuck are they doing back?” Flint asks, his voice gruff enough to cover up the fact that his eyes just skittered down Silver’s body without so much as a by-your-leave. The scouts they sent to watch over the Urca gold are waiting only a short distance away. Two grown men, now shuffling their feet.

“Because there’s no longer any gold to watch over,” Silver replies. “It’s gone.”

The words don’t fully register at first. Then Flint’s mind starts racing. The men around them begin to mutter as the news is passed along. Silver has spoken just loud enough for them to overhear, and for a complicated moment, among the turmoil both inside and out, Flint is grateful.

It is a disaster.

It is also everything he could have wished for, interrupting Hornigold’s speech just as the crew starts to turn against him. All those words are forgotten now—whatever Hornigold has said, whatever his plans are—it’s been wiped out like so many lines in the sand when the tide comes in.

The Urca de Lima’s treasure, roughly 5 million in Spanish gold.

It’s all gone.

* * *

Inside his tent, the air is clammy. Flint listens to the scouts’ report as they describe what has happened to the gold on the beach. When they leave, Silver and Dufresne stay behind while the latter gives a short account of the situation.

“The good news for you is,” Dufresne says, and there’s not much that’s positive about him or his ambitions, but at least he has the sense to open with that. “Hornigold’s support has disappeared completely. There’s not a soul among them that has any appetite for fighting over the fort tonight. Without the gold, it all seems rather pointless.”

“And the bad news?” Silver cuts in.

“It’s chaos out there. Likely to be for some time. There are as many proposals for what ought to be our next score as there are men to voice them—including ransoming that hostage girl of yours for cash instead of favors. If she’s ever delivered to us.” Dufresne doesn’t care to hide his skepticism, and it makes his teeth hurt from gnashing them together. “One way or the other, those men want to get paid, and soon.”

While Dufresne speaks, Silver steps around him, taking a look at the crew outside before settling on a wooden beam near the entrance. Flint hates the way his eyes are drawn to his every movement, how fluid they are; this catlike grace that he knows far too much about, so easy to envision in a very different context.

Silver, no doubt aware of his attention, chooses to ignore him.

Flint looks back to Dufresne. “May we have the room please?”

The bespectacled man doesn’t seem pleased at being sent away while Silver stays behind, judgment dripping off him like blood from a particularly hideous gash. But Flint’s allies are few, and for this next bit he needs Silver.

The temperature in the room changes as soon as they are alone, ticking up another few degrees. It’s just enough for Flint to feel the sweat at the back of his neck. He is glad that there’s a desk between them, a way to enforce distance, to cement their very different roles even off the ship.

Silver sighs and shakes his head when Dufresne is gone. “What a fucking mess.”

It’s tempting to commiserate, to bond, especially when Silver is right there, looking like something he’s only ever seen framed on the walls of some shockingly wealthy people. Briefly, he’s reminded of those early dinner parties at the Admiralty, every minute of which he resented. Silver’s words are an invitation. But before he can even begin to commiserate, Flint needs to secure a future worth commiserating _for_.

“We have to think very carefully about how to navigate these next steps,” he says, choosing to focus on the business at hand. “The case for returning the girl to Charlestown in exchange for reconciliation cannot come from me. I’ve just had my authority challenged. Even on its merits, the argument would seem desperate and invite doubt and suspicion. But if it came from you—”

Silver presses his lips together and looks away. A chill sweeps through the tent, and when he speaks his voice is cold.

“Let me stop you right there,” he says. “There is no _we_. _We_ stopped being a thing of any relevance about an hour ago.”

Silver gets up and comes closer. Despite the heat, the hairs on Flint’s arms rise up. Is Silver talking about the loss of the treasure or about something else?

“Is that so?” he asks, managing to sound at least somewhat disinterested.

Silver leans over the table. “I believe I’ve been clear about the nature of my investment here. The gold was the inducement. Now, no gold…”

The way he stresses the word _gold_ makes Flint’s guts turn to ice. “It’s an unfortunate development, but we have to adapt, and quickly.”

Silver almost scoffs at that. “Adapt? I’ve had about my fill of adapting lately. Doing your bidding, keeping the crew in line for you.”

Flint’s eyes widen. Is that truly what he thinks happened? Has Silver only been accommodating him all this time? Doing what he thought Flint wanted in order to improve his chances at the gold?

No, there was more to it than that. Or was there?

Some of the fight has gone out of Silver’s voice as if he’s distancing himself even from his own emotions, which would point to him being invested in some way. Maybe not emotionally, maybe that’s too much to ask. But Flint was hoping that there was at least a sliver of mutual respect, perhaps even trust.

He thinks of Silver’s skin beneath his hands, warm and firm, his head tipped back as pleasure rips through him. Hot anger wells up inside him, anger at Silver for casting doubt on what they had.

“I wasn’t the only one to benefit from that,” is all he can think to say with members of the crew all around them, their voices drifting over in the dark.

Silver isn’t having any of it. “It certainly seemed that way.” He huffs a joyless laugh. “Even now you’re the only one benefiting from it.”

“What are you saying?” Flint suppresses a shiver, feeling caught out. “That I’m benefiting from the gold having disappeared?”

Silver sounds downright angry now. “It certainly solved a number of problems for you, didn’t it? I have half a mind to wonder if you didn’t orchestrate this whole thing to your advantage.”

“Listen to me.” Flint gets up and starts towards him. “I understand your disappointment at this recent news. I share it. But I need your help. They need your help.”

“Oh, please.” Silver scoffs, even as his eyes flick down to Flint’s chest. They’re standing right across from each other now, and Silver looks angry, he sounds angry, but at the same time his whole body is angled towards him. His legs are opened slightly, his hips canting in Flint’s direction. Just a little closer, and Flint could reach out and touch him. And then everything would go a very different way. But before he can do anything, Silver adds, “Don’t try to convince me to do it for the sake of their futures.”

“For the sake of your own.” Flint steps closer.

Now he can sense the displeasure aimed at him—displeasure and something else. Something quite at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, burning hot and intense. It takes hold of him, makes him forget about being gentle. He falls back on the habits he knows best, comforting, familiar and deeply ingrained. Silver has only just started to be accepted by the crew, and now he thinks he can have more of an impact elsewhere? Use his pretty little body to start over somewhere else, wheedling his way in and offering his services? No. Flint’s voice turns harsh.

“Those men listen to you. They give a shit about what you have to say. What you think, what you want them to think. Where else in the world is that true?” He knows he’s going too far, but he continues anyway. “Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter? You walk out on this, then where the fuck are you going?”

Silver swallows, looking vulnerable. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything and just regards him quietly.

Then he turns to leave.

Flint feels a twinge of loss pulse through him, followed by the urge to hold on and get him to stay. “You’ll address the men?”

“Yeah.”

Silver’s voice is compact, packed tight like a glacier. Has Flint won him back just to lose him a different way?

Suddenly, his anger collapses in on itself. He doesn’t want him to leave the tent, he realizes, even if it’s to his advantage to have Silver speak for him. He wants him here instead, wants to know what he truly thinks. Most of all, he wants to run his fingers through his hair and hold him close until the coldness between them disappears.

“Many of them won’t want to hear it,” he says. His voice starts to shake, and he hates it. “Don’t you want to discuss how you’ll approach them?”

With his back to him, Silver only half-turns. An uncomfortable silence stretches out between them, a gulf growing wider.

Flint can only see his profile, one side of his face like a mask of Janus, as he responds.

“I know what I’m doing.”

* * *

True to his words, when Silver talks to the men a short time later, he is perfect. Flint isn’t watching as such, it wouldn’t do to betray his investment like that, but Silver’s voice carries. Every once in a while he catches a glimpse as Silver walks across his makeshift stage, every step measured and calculated. Then he’ll fold his arms across his chest as if he couldn’t care less about convincing the men, or about the outcome of the vote. The men take to that, it makes them feel as if he’s on their side, and Silver is so good that, for a moment, even Flint starts to believe it. He’s an actor with marvelous control over his body, right down to the pitch of his voice, guiding the men to what they believe are their own conclusions.

Flint tries to ignore what that does to him, wound up as he is with the future hanging in the balance. He ends up going for a walk halfway through, though, just to quiet his thoughts, this pang in his chest when he thinks of what’s to come.

In the end, the vote turns out all right. But while he waits for the final tally, Silver slips away somewhere. By the time Flint hears the result of the vote, the ship’s cook is nowhere to be found.

* * *

In Nassau, most nights are comfortable and warm. Temperatures rarely drop low enough for it to be chilly, only the wind blowing inland from the sea turns a little cooler. Men stagger from tavern to brothel and back again, holding on to their mates or their bellies. Some invest their prize money into small houses in town or on one of the islands, entering a marriage or a matelotage. But domesticity is a foreign concept to most pirates and, flush with cash, they spend their coin as soon as they’ve earned it, passing the time between hauls drinking and gambling and fucking, all too aware that life is short and can be over any moment.

Flint accompanies Miranda and Abigail to the pier, entrusting Billy with rowing them to the ship and helping them with what few possessions Miranda has decided to bring along. Billy isn’t one to mind missing out on one last night in the brothel, and Flint prefers to know him on board, getting everything ready. They plan to set sail at first light, and since the Spanish man-of-war is outfitted with several officer’s cabins, Billy has taken it upon himself to prepare one and make the women comfortable.

On his way back into town, Flint stops by the Guthrie tavern to wrap up his business with Eleanor. She has come through for him, just as she’s promised, delivering the girl. Abigail Ashe was smudged and dirt-streaked and frightened, but just as brave as he remembers such young women to be, and physically unharmed. Her sudden appearance is a rare wonder that Flint intends to cherish.

He is still recovering from his meeting with the girl, her well-to-do poise—so out of place in Nassau—sending him back to a time long gone and lost. Thankfully, the girl recognized Miranda from her time in London, and with that connection in place, he had allowed himself to be James to her; had introduced himself as such. In the moment, it had felt right, but it has shaken him, has caused some sort of slippage within himself that he now seeks to put to rights. The mask of Captain Flint needs to hold fast.

He finds Eleanor standing on her balcony overlooking the street. She turns to him with a big smile on her face, and they talk about the future of the island, this place they both care for so much, each for their own reasons. He remembers her from when she was a girl, back when he first arrived, and there is something of the girl still in her as she recounts her plans.

“My father has left for the interior to lay the groundwork with Mr. Underhill for the partnership. With any luck, by the time you return, you and Governor Ashe will be greeted by a group of handsome men, pretty wives, and rosy-cheeked children,” she says, painting a vivid picture with her words. “Lawful citizens of New Providence Island who, after decades of struggles, have finally found a way to sell their sugarcane to honest markets.”

Her enthusiasm makes him smile, a fond, genuine smile, crinkling the corners of his eyes. He’s proud of her, he realizes, proud of the woman she’s become.

“You know,” he says, “if you and I aren’t careful, we might actually see this thing through.”

A strange feeling suffuses him then, and it takes him a while to identify it. After discussing their next steps they stand there in silence for a while, taking in the night’s air, the raucous laughter ringing out from the street below. It’s a companionable silence, a mutual understanding, but he still can’t understand what this strange excitement is, this warm and vibrant glow pulsing through him.

It hits him just as he makes his way down the stairs: now there’s a future waiting for them, for all of them, all of Nassau. He catches himself wanting to hum to himself, and when he steps outside everything is familiar but also different. The dirt-covered street has a new sort of promise to it, glittering in the night. The drunken men crossing his path are changing into busy workers, building this town with him and sailing the ship of Nassau onward into a brighter future. And then, slowly, the strange feeling starts to make sense.

It is hope.

He’s not sure when he last felt such an unspoiled version of it—when he last looked forward to waking up in the morning.

And then, further down the street, he runs into Silver. For a brief instance, Silver seems startled, emerging as he does from the alley next to the brothel. But then his frown of confusion is quickly replaced by a smile.

“Captain!” he says. “Did everything work out with the girl?”

And Flint, Flint knows he’s being silly and sentimental, and that Silver is likely to have left the brothel with all his physical needs well taken care of.

But he can’t help it. He meets Silver’s eyes and nods. His pulse jumps, but his voice is calm, confident.

“Have a drink with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me!!
> 
> I have every intention of finishing this fic, but at this point I'm a little unsure what form that will take. Initially, I had planned a complete season 2 AU with at least six or seven more chapters, but now I wonder if I shouldn't wrap things up early within a chapter or two. That would leave me the option of writing a potential sequel as a separate fic, which I could then start uploading once it's complete, hopefully reducing wait times and making things less frustrating for all of us. 
> 
> I welcome any input on this topic if you're reading this and have any, as I honestly don't know how many people are still following this fic at this stage. And any thoughts on this chapter are welcome too, of course!
> 
> One thing I can promise, though: in the next installment things are going to heat up again between our two leads.


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